Blogger Claims To Have Discovered Long-Lost Pyramids Using Google Earth

A self-described "satellite archaeology researcher" has garnered
widespread media attention with claims that she has found two
possible pyramid complexes in Egypt using Google Earth. But experts say her pyramids are
nothing more than eroded hills infused with a heavy dose of
wishful thinking.

Angela Micol, a North Carolina-based woman who blogs at Google
Earth Anomalies, says she discovered the two clusters of
mysterious, angular mounds in the Egyptian desert while surveying
satellite images of the terrain using Google Earth, the virtual
map program. In its coverage, Gizmodo asserts that the desert structures look
as if they have been "very deliberately arranged," and that they
"bear all the hallmarks of
ancient pyramid sites."

If Micol's blog is to be believed, Egyptologists have vetted and
are currently investigating her amazing discovery. "The images
speak for themselves. It's very obvious what the sites may
contain but field research is needed to verify they are, in fact,
pyramids," Micol
wrote on her blog.

Turns out, further field research won't be necessary after all.
These mounds are just your common buttes.

"It seems that Angela Micol is one of the so-called 'pyridiots'
who see pyramids everywhere," said James Harrell, professor
emeritus of archaeological geology at the University of Toledo
and a leading expert on the archaeological geology of ancient
Egypt. "Her Dimai and Abu Sidhum 'pyramids' are examples of
natural rock formations that might be mistaken for archaeological
features provided one is unburdened by any knowledge of
archaeology or geology. In other words, her pyramids are just
wishful thinking by an ignorant observer with an overactive
imagination." [How
Much Would It Cost to Build the Great Pyramid Today?]

(Micol did not respond to an email from Life's Little Mysteries
as of the time of publication.)

The large, three- and four-sided hills Micol chanced upon are
geologic features known as buttes, Harrell told Life's Little
Mysteries. Commonly seen in the local Faiyum Desert, such buttes
form when a mound of sediment contains a difficult-to-erode
layer. When the surrounding sediment gradually erodes, that
resistant layer gets left on top, making the hill flat.

Meanwhile, the smaller hills found in Micol's Google Earth
screenshots are circular, and thus nothing like pyramids, Harrell
said.

Are these Egyptian desert
features natural or man-made?Google
Earth via Google Earth Anomalies

Other geologists attribute the features to the forces of nature
as well. "What it looks like to me is an area where a resistant
layer of stone is underlain by soft rock, perhaps shales. If that
is so, the triangular one looks very much the sort of feature
common in the U.S. southwest, and might be called a butte," said
Clair Ossian, a geoarcheologist at Tarrant County College who has
studied Egypt's sites.

So in summary, sorry folks: nothing to see here but a couple of
big buttes. The question is how they garnered so much breathless,
and factless, media attention.